How Long Does Heroin Stay in Your Urine?

Heroin has a short half-life, meaning the drug can exit the body quick. While you may look for how long does heroin stay in your urine, other tests are also available that you should know for testing heroin use.

Testing for Heroin Use

As with all drugs, four ways are available to test for use; hair follicle test, blood test, urine test, and saliva test. Each test varies on accuracy. Test results depend on how the drug was used and threeother factors.

Your body build: Your height and weight will decide how long the drug will be detectable. Tests show that smaller people test positive for drugs longer than those with more body mass.

The amount of heroin taken: Larger doses of heroin may stay in the body for longer periods. If you are taking heroin often, it will build up in the system and be detectable for longer periods of time after the last hit.

Your metabolism: If you exercise regularly and drink lot of water, heroin may leave your body faster. Heroin is detoxed much like any other toxin, so sweating from strenuous exercise will help remove traces of the drug.

Basics of How Long Does Heroin Stay in Your Urine

Depending on how you take heroin, the drug reaches the brain fast. IV injection effects start within 1-2 minutes of use, whereas intramuscular injection and snorting action starts within 15-30 minutes. Peak effects are reached within 10 minutes and 30 minutes, respectively.

The effects of heroin sedation can last 3-5 hours, but the half-life is 15-30 minutes. This means the peak high will happen within 15-30 minutes, but the user will feel sedated much longer.

While this information is important, don’t confuse these times with how long heroin stays in the urine as heroin breaks down into morphine in the body. Morphine has a longer half-life of 2-3 hours and is detectable in urine up to 24 hours after heroin use. Moreover, heroin breaks into 6-MAM before converting into morphine. This part is only present when heroin has been used.

Again, your height and weight will decide how long heroin can be detected, with some urine tests proving positive up to 3 days after last drug use.

Looking Beyond How Long Does Heroin Stay in Your Urine

While urine tests can detect heroin use for up to 3 days, other methods of testing have longer and shorter detection times.

The Hair Follicle Test: This test can detect heroin use up to 90 days.

Saliva and Blood Tests: These tests can detect heroin use up to 12 hours after last dose.

Get Help for Heroin Addiction

If you or a loved one are looking for information on how long does heroin stay in your urine, it may be time to get help for heroin addiction. Call Aion Recovery at 888-811-2879 for information on recovery options.